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VG wrote:
Dear Mr. Parker,
My name is VG and I was at the round table discussion this evening. I would like to thank you for coming and speaking about your personal experiences and giving us advice at the round table discussion. As a sophomore, it was very interesting to see how much more of your experiences I fully understand after experiencing them myself.
I had a couple of questions that I wanted to ask you but unfortunately I had to leave early due to a prior commitment. If you don’t mind answering them, I would really appreciate it.
Once again, thank you for coming to speak to us and giving us advice.
Regards,
VG
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My response:
Hi VG,
Thanks for coming out to last night’s discussion, despite needing to leave early. I recognize that you guys have a bunch of things on your schedules, so I appreciate that you made the time.
Here are some quick answers to your questions:
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- From what you said, you have a degree in Computer Science. Currently, I am an Informatics major at [University] and I was wondering what would be the best way to intertwine my technology background with business knowledge in order to become a more attractive recruit for a company?
Great question, but I’m a little confused by what you’re asking. Isn’t the Informatics program designed to help you intertwine your technology background with business knowledge? I think what you’re asking for is the best way to leverage your combination of technology and business knowledge to be a more attractive recruit. If that’s the case, then I think I’ve got your back on that one.The first step is to understand that being a Techie and being a Business Guy are two separate things, each of which has different strengths and weaknesses. Once you’re able to identify those strengths/weaknesses, you’ll be able to carve out a story for why you being able to play the dual-role of both will allow you to bring a set of combined capabilities that make up for the standard weaknesses that come with each one. For example, one common knock on techies is that they get too deep in the weeds and have a hard time seeing the big picture of a given situation. With your background in business learning, you have taken (or will soon take) courses in strategy, operations, and leadership, all of which are meant to provide you with the tools to adopt a big picture perspective. Essentially, you’ll be able to present yourself as a “one-two punch” sort of candidate who is able to either play an IT-related role in any kind of company or a more general management/business role in an IT company. Most kids coming out of college today don’t have the background to make a legitimate case for being able to to that.
I’d highly recommend starting a subscription to BusinessWeek, Fortune, or the Wall Street Journal if you haven’t already. These types of publications will give you a comprehensive view of what is happening across all industries and in many functional areas. Most importantly, the articles often dive into how technology is impacting companies and entire industries. Having an understanding of the overall business landscape and the role that technology is playing will be helpful in figuring out how to best communicate the benefits that your technology and business backgrounds can bring to a role, both on your resume and during interactions with company people.
As a final step, I’d recommend doing deep-dive research into each company that you’re considering to understand its markets and overall business and, in particular, to understand how IT is an important factor in what it does. This will allow you to be conversant in how your background and knowledge can help you to have an impact on the company. It’s all about understanding what the company needs and how your unique set of skills can provide value to address those needs.
- In the future, I would like to become a lobbyist in Washington D.C and I was wondering if there was any kind of consulting firm that supports that kind of profession and how would you go about contacting those firms and asking for opportunities to get a foot in the industry?
I’ve never heard of any consulting firms that play in the lobbying space because it’s such a specialized field. One potential approach would be for you to target a larger management consulting firm that does a bunch of government work and use that to get your foot into the door. Firms like Booz Allen Hamilton, Accenture, and IBM do a bunch of government-focused work and, if you can get onto some of those projects, you could build both expertise and connections in order to build a profile that lobbying firms would want to bring in. You may want to connect with folks who are currently lobbying on behalf of different industries and find out how they made their way into that space. - I can decipher from the experiences that you shared with us that you have gained a lot of knowledge of different companies as well as different industries. I was curious to know which industries you see as potential boom industries and which industries that currently look like boom industries but that have the potential to morph into a bust.
This is a really interesting question and it’s one that I’ve never thought about before. Let me start by saying that what I say here will be a wild guess on my part because I don’t have any real data to back anything up. Listening to my gut, I’m a big fan of the mobile payments industry. There are established players like PayPal and several smaller upstart companies that are making noise, as well. In the next few years, there will be some shaking out of players in that sector and, in the meantime, the survivors will have to get even better at what they do in order to win. Consumers will win as a result.Surprisingly, I anticipate that we’ll see a bit of resurgence in the manufacturing industry here in the U.S., as well. Outsourcing was the big thing a few years back, but, with all of the bad press around it and increasing fuel prices, outsourcing isn’t as attractive as it used to be. I have a feeling that American companies will start bringing some of their manufacturing work back here and then doubling down on marketing to let the world know that they’ve done so. If this happens, it could result in a pretty big boost in jobs stateside, so don’t be surprised if you see politicians jump on the bandwagon and advocate for this sort of thing.
When it comes to guessing which industries may morph into a bust, there are so many options that it’s hard to hone in on a small number. To me, it looks like the smartphone and mobile device providers are on a race to the bottom where they keep trying to create cheaper products (with pretty decent functionality) to expand their customer bases. Eventually, the market will get flooded with these cheaper devices and may cannibalize the market for more expensive devices. Plus, the higher end devices cost so much that I think the days of people choosing to re-up every 2 years are going away. It might take a couple of years for the industry to feel the impact, but, once it happens, we’ll see major shifts in the fortunes of these manufacturers.
I hope these answers cover some of the things that you were looking for on these items.
Marquis
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